Watch out for the range if you want to go exploring. And I wouldn't fancy taking one very far on the typical country roads with 80km/h speed limits and a top speed of 50km/h - even doing the speed limit things come up behind unreasonably fast (but I am willing to cycle the same roads). They really look meant for city driving

Is the main question here if your wife would be allowed to drive the car with just a provisional UK license?

@ChrisH-UK Yes, trips would need to be carefully planned due to the range and speed. This is part of the idea, to see how workable it is as a vehicle.

@Uciebila No, quite the opposite . The wife question is "optional extra". The main question is that in the title: is it easy for a tourist to rent one?

BTW I don't know if the Ami changes anything (and Brexit might have changed things since I last drove in France anyway) but a UK provisional doesn't normally allow you to drive in France. If you bought one in the UK it would class as a car for licensing purposes, i.e. she could drive it accompanied as a learner. Hire firms normally ban learners even if the law doesn't.

You won't be doing much touring in the country: Citroen's page says "With a range of 43 miles and a top speed of 28mph ..." They describe it as useful for "nipping around cities or popping to your local supermarket."

... I think for things like mopeds in France (similar driver.rider requirements) a licence as such isn't required but a permit of some form is, and that's not easy as a non-resident

@ChrisH-UK The difference is that it is not technically a car, it is a quadricycle. In France, you can drive it at 14 with no licence. In the UK, the expectation is that you could drive it unaccompanied as a learner.

@WeatherVane if you don't plan on leaving the city it might not be too bad. Here on the other hand I couldn't get to a supermarket in one without holding up the traffic, and my regular driving journey (once/fortnight - I really don't drive much) would get longer to avoid a 70mph stretch.

@ChrisH-UK I wonder if it's permitted on a motorway. Slow vehicles there are incredibly dangerous to everyone.

@badjohn yes, like a moped in France. But no licence isn't the same as no paperwork. Autocar say a full licence will be required in the UK - presumably because electric quadricycles don't have a category in law (the closest would be electric bikes, but they have to have pedals, or "invalid carriages")

@WeatherVane I very much doubt it would be, and I certainly wouldn't want to. The road in question here is just a dual carriageway A road. BTW I ended up cycling up hill on a 70 limit dual carriageway in August - luckily a quiet one (A9 near Inverness, it's really the only road going that way)

I have dropped the question about the wife as it was distracting from the main question.

@ChrisH-UK Whether in France or the UK, I would not consider driving it on a motorway or 70mph dual carriageway whether or not it was allowed. It we rented out of Paris, we would carefully plan a route based on the range and type of roads. Similarly, if we bought one in the UK, we would plan. The obvious way to the next town from home is a 70mph dual carriageway but a 40mph route is also available.

I think 30mph on a 40mph road is reasonable; it's certainly legal. Even on the dual carriageway it would be allowed - you'd be slightly faster than a tractor (and they're not uncommon on things like the A38 Devon Expressway), but also a lot smaller and less obvious than a tractor. I tend not to be an early adopter, but in this case would want to let the legal position settle down

@ChrisH-UK for towns, this might be the way things are going, what with the proposed changes in the Highway Code for cyclist and pedestrian priority, 20mph urban speed limits, ULEV etc. Right now, urban streets are choked with sole-occupant SUVs which seem to be getting larger and larger.

But in the country... slightly faster than a tractor... which is required to display flashing warning lights.

@WeatherVane I hope so - that fortnightly drive is done in a 2-occupant Transit campervan so I share some of the guilt - but less myself off because I cycle around 3x as far as I drive in a typical year. Tricky on the fringes though, with the way ring roads and arterial roads have been built, combined with a lack of decent public transport

@ChrisH-UK that last is the problem: my town centre is already at capacity with public transport, which seems to be exempt from low emission regulations, and where most of the pollution is coming from buses. It doesn't add up.

@WeatherVane re tractors: Orange beacons must be used on dual carriageways, may be used on other roads. 50cc mopeds/scooters are a similar speed, not allowed on motorways, but permitted on fast dual carriageways

@WeatherVane It seems a lot of nasty old buses ended up relegated from London. We're finally getting modern ones here, but they're stuck in traffic jams of SUVs all the time, hence it takes about the same time to cycle 10 miles and shower, as to get a bus+walk

Maybe it's good to mention the question is not about this model, which is what I was thinking of until I googled it. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_Ami